MMOs and game design

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Thought of the day: On ownership of group achievements

Assume that you turn up to a PUG one evening which downs the first few bosses in a raid. The next day, the raid leader continues with a different bunch of people and clears the rest. Do you feel that it was a joint achievement – we cleared raid instance X?

How about if it was a guild run, and you were on reserve the second night?

I think most people would feel a sense of ownership for the second achievement but not the first, even though they might have put in exactly the same amount of time personally.

I don’t really think I have “ownership” of my guilds achievements unless I have actually been a part of the whole process. Thats not a big problem though, I’m the main tank so I’m always in on the runs.

But even then, I think of them as the guilds achievements and not mine… it’s a group of people that make it possible, so how can any one person own it?

If I ever manage to solo ICC I’ll say I own the achiev, but until then, I’m just a gear in the machine.

My raiding career pretty much started and ended with Kara. As we were progressing you couldn’t do the whole place in a single night so we split it up during the week. My schedule at the time prevented me from playing Thursdays so I missed out on a lot of the bosses from time to time. What really peeved me though was that when I was available I would come on and play but then I could end up with dryspells where I wouldn’t see the “2nd half” of the bosses (post Maiden up to Malchezzar) a lot of the time. Because of this I missed out on some of the guild first kills and some nice loot gaps too. I don’t mind being missed out for a raid or two but being consistently dropped got annoying. Especially on one Thursday where I was free for a change and had respecced and regeared Shadow specifically for the raid at the request of others and then got dropped as I was sitting inside the Raid waiting for it to start…

Sure. I think I was tanking in our first kill of BQL and it was very exciting. Sure the role is dull but it’s still an important part of the group effort — someone needs to do it. Plus I was involved in the chat on teamspeak and on the raid channel.

I was talking about the tank who just stands there to catch saber lashes. You don’t have to generate aggro, you don’t have to taunt, you don’t have to *tank*. You’re just a constant shield wall for the “real” tank.

The fire boss in VoA is a good example.

I was the second tank in Zul’Aman with my Paladin.

– I was tanking Nalorakk.
– I was tanking trash at Jan’alai, trash that did no damage. I could have been tanked in ret gear.
– I was healing during Akil’zon in prot spec.
– I was there standing still catching saber lashes from Halazzi. Not attacking because of parry-haste. I did tank the trash tiger because warriors didn’t have that many range pull abilities. Paladins at least head their shield. :)
– I was healing at Witch doctor because we locked every add down and the healers thought it’s easier to heal only one tank with boss + 1 add instead of 2 tanks.
– I was healing at Hex Lord Malacrass as there is nothing to do for a second tank.

I was tanking 2 bosses, 1 boss-trash and healing 3 bosses. Kinda strange when you roll first need on gear you use less then your second need. :)

And, to be honest, I did not feel it was a joint achievement. I felt that they dragged me through the boss kills as kind of reward because I helped them on trash there. I was fully aware that the raid would have killed the bosses faster if I would have logged onto a healer or DD alt for 4 out of 6 bosses.

And I also didn’t really think that Valithria was a joint achievement when I was there on my warlock for our raids first kill. I fully gave credit to the healers who finally figured out how to play like a DD. After the first kill my thought was “cool, they did it”.

When you needed an entire guild to progress, be it the players that actually downed the boss or be it the players that helped grinding mats; yes that fellt like you helped achieving it.
Today not so much. And all what counts is the title above YOUR head and not that title that some guildies have. Would be nice to have guild-titles tho.

If you were benched because the top 3 DPS got invites and you’re not top 3, then yes, your contribution was diminished.

If your benching was random (e.g. offline issues, or a routine/random roster swap), then consider your overall contribution to the guild as a whole. You meet the requirements to be there, and you have contributed to past accomplishments (and failures, such as the nights the group spent learning the encounter). Even if you COULD have been replaced at any and all times, the fact is that you DID contribute to the effort that ultimately led to victory.

Making the same claim for a resumed PUG with a largely revamped roster would be more difficult. You’d have to make the case that the group that finished the dungeon could not have killed some of the bosses that the different group killed when you were there (or that upgrades/experience from the earlier kills somehow improved their chances).